Half Moon
by radishface
Summary: Experiments in seduction, injury, and deck furniture only make Faye realize how different she needs them to be. Otherwise, Spike doesn’t care, Faye cares too much, Jet remains restrained, and everything is the same as always. One-shot, SF, JF.


**Half-Moon**

_Disclaimers:_ Cowboy Bebop belongs to Bandai Entertainment.

_Summary:_ Experiments in seduction, injury, and deck furniture only make Faye realize how different she needs them to be. Otherwise, Spike doesn't care, Faye cares too much, Jet remains restrained, and everything is the same as always.

**Radishface**

*

**Half-Moon**

The Bebop is docked in Ganymede Bay on a sunny day, and Faye realizes that it's been a while since she's upped her vitamin D count. The deck chair looks inviting; she wonders who put it outside.

_*_

Ed finishes fishing for the time being, making her way over to Faye, who has finished spreading the last of the tan lotion on her legs. Ed leans in to feel with her face, a tactile motion, sweeping her cheek up and down Faye's calves, relishing the subtle smell of chemical coconut and the silky-sweet feel of Faye's skin. Faye grimaces, but doesn't say anything.

_*_

The sun eventually sets, casting a warm, diffuse glow over Ganymede harbor. Ed has gone inside, and Faye squints through her sunglasses, wondering how far away the city is.

It isn't until she gets up that she realizes that she missed a spot on her back, a spot that pinches like needles and glows iron-red.

_*_

"Hey," she walks in the kitchen, where Jet is peeling potatoes. _Schlip, schlip, schlip,_ goes the peeler. The potato skins lay in a pile by his feet, staining scraps of newspaper. "Do we have any ice?"

He looks up, like she knows he will. She's still in her bikini, of course, a bronze goddess in the doorway, smelling like coconuts and residual sunshine. Faye pretends she doesn't see the look on his face: the slight widening of the eyes, the way his jaw goes slack, the way he turns away abruptly: suddenly, intensely focused on the act of potato-peeling. She pretends to look disdainful, like, _you know you're too old for this, right?_

_*_

In the shower, it suddenly occurs to her that she shouldn't be lost in thought, thinking about the way Jet looked at her, that she should stop the way her own hands are slowly trailing down her body, wet and lingering. She grabs for the soap and scrubs furiously, all the while muttering under her breath.

_*_

She's got the ice pack wrapped in a towel, tied to her back with one of her suspender straps. It almost slips off when she sits down for dinner. They're all sitting down for dinner these days, something that almost surprises her, except if she followed that emotion all the way through it would end in something like happiness, and she doesn't want to set herself up for disappointment.

When they finish eating their dinner of bell peppers and potatoes, Jet brings out the final touch to their quasi-familial meal; a chocolate cake.

Ed squeals in delight, Ein whines (too bad dogs can't have chocolate), and even Spike looks like he's about to crack a smile. Jet is beaming. Faye considers snapping at him, where the hell did you get the money for that sort of thing and then decides that she can't help but be pleasantly, happily surprised. They all dig in.

_*_

It's her turn to do the dishes tonight, and she reluctantly sets to it. Halfway through the clutter she hears somebody turn on the television and the sound of Punch and Judy in the living room.

She listens from where she is, turning the faucet down lower so that the rush of water doesn't drown out the program.

"She sure is a looker!" Punch brasses admiringly. "Wouldn't miss her for the solar system."

Judy is considerably more subdued. "The police have placed a thirty million woolong reward for the capture of Eva Stormlaw-Weiller. She was last seen heading toward Earth." Judy's voice is bright and fake.

Faye peeks her head in the living room. Spike is spread out on the couch, arms and limbs cast broadly in incongruous ease, water in slow motion. He casts Faye an indifferent glance and turns back to the show. Jet is hunched over the screen, muscles rippling in languid waves on his back, straining lightly through his short sleeve t-shirt. He's lighting a cigarette, fingers on the filter with a delicacy that belies his build and makes Faye stare for a beat too long.

"So what do you think, Spike?" Faye's voice carries an edge, and she hastens to temper it. She thought she was past this, she meant to address the both of them, but her question is now directed at Spike, and she can't take it back. She knows Jet's eyes are on her now, eyebrows knitted in concern and jaw clenched with impatience. She feels like a schoolgirl, hot and embarrassed, clamoring for the attention of the most popular boy. Faye lowers her voice. "Are you in?"

Spike doesn't even look at her. "Femme fatales really aren't my style, sorry."

_*_

It was only a week ago that Faye caught him looking at her in the hangar. She was bent over Redtail's engine, tinkering around with something, and when she looked up she could see his reflection in the window of Redtail's cockpit. She was aware, densely, of the way her legs were straining on tip-toe, of the way her back curved, the way her red sweater wrapped around her shoulders, loosely. She'd shrugged it off, making the motion as guileless as she could, the consequent stretch of her arms, her body a half-moon, the content exhale of her sigh, all guileless, guiltless, innocent.

*

A cold, metallic touch to her shoulder brings her out of the memory, dimly. The television is still on; Jet's eyes are dark and unreadable. "Let's outline a plan for tomorrow. I'll be in the control room."

Faye isn't sure if she wants to go, just yet; her dignity, wrapped in sun-goddess curves, pulses dully in her head, a small and terrible reminder of her humanity. She rips the feeling in two, pulls herself away from the abyss, and follows Jet's footsteps out of the living room.

_*_

The next morning, she and Jet take flight. Spike was nowhere to be seen; presumably he was still sleeping. It was a luxury she hadn't been able to afford—her feet with a mind of their own, pacing her across the floor, back and forth, increasingly agitated and restless for most of the night, now settling coolly on the metal plating of the cockpit. She pushes her foot down on the gas and wrenches the lever up, accelerating toward the sky.

Jet's voice calls over the intercom, perhaps indignantly, maybe bewildered; of course he's watching. She pulls her ship into a loop and feels the blood rushing to her head, a roaring in her ears.

Ganymede is a blue blur, an intercranial haze, the Bebop an indistinct mammoth in the bay. Jet's voice burns through her speakers, "what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"_Live _a little_,_" she hollers back. Faye slams her ship into a tightly wound spiral before she wrenches the lever back and sails up again, narrowly speaking herself on Hammerhead's harpoon. It's as if they were two swimming fish, dancing in three dimensions. She hears Jet's laugh, solid and somber all at once, as if he knows. But then he picks up speed, maneuvering the Hammerhead so that they're parallel in speed and vector, swimming in tandem now. The smell of gasoline burns sharp and satisfying between them and everything else a terminal blur.

She wonders if they're still within range of the Bebop, of the control deck, with its massive bay windows and generous light and Spike's morning taichi.

_*_

To enter earth's atmosphere, they have dock their ships with an Earthbound shuttle service, something that sets them back a few thousand woolongs. Jet's upper lip curls slightly and Faye braces herself for a new round of nagging—_it's your ship, too_—as he fishes out his checkcard, swiping it through the auto-pay system with a deliberate, measured movement.

But Jet doesn't complain.

**Catalyst**

Their encounter with Eva's goons leaves blood in her mouth. Faye is biting the inside of her cheek to stem the flow as she lashes out with her fists, her gun out of bullets long ago. One of the thugs abandons the fistfight and pulls a gun on her. She ducks into a roll, bullets firing down the alley, and finds herself crossing her fingers. Jet should be here any minute now.

The Hammerhead pulls in from the sky and unleashes a barrage of ammunition on the advancing goons. Faye covers her head, still biting down on her cheek, making a run for her own ship. She's inside and has started the ignition when she sees one of the remaining thugs in the back of the alley pull out a rocket launcher and mount it on his shoulder. Faye knows that they can't see her—they didn't even know that she had a ship. But Jet—

The rocket explodes squarely on his cockpit, and Faye doesn't waste any time, lassoing her grappler onto the Hammerhead's hull and pulling it out of there, her heart in her throat and the image of Jet's head cracked open, possibly, a still image in her mind.

_*_

The Redtail lands in a deserted part of Tharsis. There's no way Faye can keep going with Hammerhead stuck onto Redtail; there won't be enough fuel to get them home. She runs over to Jet's ship and unlocks the cockpit. Cockpit glass crumbles, shaking loose from the chassis as it retracts itself. He's knocked unconscious, shards in his upper body and in his arm. It looks like he managed to block off the worst of the shrapnel with the metallic arm, ridden in dents. Blood is pouring profusely from a gash in his head and his other arm is lying limply at his side, twisted at an oblique angle. Faye digs out the first-aid kit and wraps him up, hands shaking, a sorry job.

"Hey," she manages, trying to sound angry, or annoyed. _Hey_.

Jet blinks, gritting his teeth as he wakes into consciousness.

"Can you walk?" She doesn't wait for an answer, but slings his arm—the good one, the one that clinks over the metallic fastenings of her suspenders—over her shoulder. "We need to get to my ship. Come on."

He budges, shifting his legs, bringing them up slowly. _Come on, _she repeats in her head.

_*_

The doc said that he'd be fine in a two months, but Faye had pressed more money than necessary into his hand anyway, because some transactions needed to be completely insured.

_*_

She was passing through the room to get something from the kitchen before she remembered that they had nothing left except the bell pepper and potato leftovers from a week ago. It isn't like her to stop in her tracks, listening to the quiet humming of the fan, observing the stillness of the living room, but she does it anyway. It's quiet in the living room, but that's deliberate. She's not in the mood for Punch and Judy.

Jet sleeps on the couch, wrapped up in bandages, oblivious to the world. Before she knows it, she's humming to herself, something she hopes might be half-heard, in dreams.

*

The song goes on even as she steps outside, letting the night air wash over her and cool her from the lungs and out. Ein is trotting laps on the deck, and Ed is outside too, computer perched on her head. Tomato's mechanical voice bleats out, _chances of meteor showers tonight… seventy-two percent_.

"Whee!" Edward exclaims, and Ein barks in response. Faye looks up to the sky, too, waiting.

*

She's about to go to bed when she hears a familiar rumbling outside, clanking, gears whirring, engine powering down. Moments later, the hangar door is shutting. Spike's footsteps echo distantly, slowing down as he ventures in the living room, and then stopping.

"The prodigal son returns," Jet says. His voice is muffled and pained, but as welcoming as ever.

"What happened to you?"

"A little accident on Earth."

Something else murmured, and then the sound of hearty, masculine, self-assuring laughter.

_*_

Faye is still by her door, hand poised over the doorknob; in the middle of opening, closing, wondering why she's standing in the dark, so furtively.

_*_

In this dream, Faye's body isn't her own. It's a masculine body, with thick, hairy thighs and shins, and—Faye takes a hold of this appendage, this strangely shaped, messy, elastic thing attached between her legs, and thinks that she should be embarrassed, but she isn't. She takes deep breaths and the body breathes with her, abdominals expanding and deflating, and she punches herself in the stomach once, twice, just to see.

Surprisingly, a baby pops out (from where?) and she's (he's) suddenly surrounded by well-wishers, the baby suddenly wrapped in a blanket and nestled in her (his) arms. Everybody is saying good things and everything is good, home is where the baby is, and everybody is there, giving her strength and encouragement, and she can do anything she wants as long as she has the baby. It doesn't cry or scream or do any of the things you'd expect babies to do, not at all, it just lays there, quietly watching Faye with its big round baby eyes, replete with knowledge of a thousand worlds and lives. Her (his) neck prickles with a warning from somewhere deep within her, but they go on the plane anyway, somewhere. The baby doesn't make a peep at all through the ride, and even its diaper needs to be changed, Faye doesn't go to the bathroom because, if she looks in a mirror, she knows it will be all over, if she sees whose body this is.

And afterwards the flight attendants smile at her (him) and say, _what a well-behaved child you have,_ and Faye finds herself (himself) wrapping his thick, muscular arms tightly around the small, baby body, whispering, _oh no please no, _because the plane hasn't actually landed, and the next step Faye takes out the plane—

_*_

The meteor showers wake her up. Loud thunks and plinks on the hull of the Bebop, gravel on a sea turtle's shell. A light flickers on in the hallway, and she doesn't hesitate before she's standing up, blood rushing out of her head and making her dizzy, but she needs to know.

Spike is standing outside her door, dressed in a ratty white t-shirt and a pair of lumpy sweatpants. He's mid-step, and looks surprised to see her standing there.

She quickly composes herself. "I was just going to check on Jet," she says. "Don't worry about it."

He raises an eyebrow, a surprisingly alert gesture for somebody awake at this hour. "I was just going to get a glass of water."

Faye is annoyed, of course, she always is, because that's the only way she can deal with this man and still look him in the eye the next day. She's deeply, deeply, annoyed, and she doesn't think that anything can ever change that.

"Well," she says, "we need to go get him some things tomorrow. He's no use to anyone just lying around the ship all day." Her voice has gotten louder than it needs to be. "And you're coming with me, whether you like it or not."

Spike just says, "okay."

**Familiar**

She read somewhere in the news that food products with blue food coloring in them speed up the recovery process. So she buys things that are blue and makes Spike carry them—blue chocolate candies, blue sports drinks, a loose pair of blue flannel pajamas, since Jet's usual jumpsuit is hard to get in and out of—

"I don't know about those," Spike says. He's got a blue, blueberry-flavored lollipop stuck in his mouth, and it clicks against his teeth when he talks. The inside of his mouth is a rich indigo, and his teeth are dark around the edges. Faye had bought him one to shut him up when he kept disparaging her theories about the blue thing.

"Shut up," she says. "I already told you we're going to the Chinese apocathery after this for _your_ kind of medicine—" Faye remembers the pickled newt Spike had given Jet during a previous period of convalescence, and shudders. "So just let me do this, okay?"

He doesn't miss a beat. "Okay."

_*_

"They say that some people are ready to sing the blues before they're even born," Jet says, "but I'm not sure about ingesting large quantities of blue dye right after an injury."

"I _read _it in the news." Faye scrambles for the computer on the coffee table and pulls up an article. "See? _Researchers found that when they injected the compound of Brilliant Blue G into mice with spinal cord injuries, the rodents were able to walk again—_"

"Jet's spine is doing okay, last time I checked." Spike chimes in. "I think it's mostly his arm—"

"What can't help can't hurt can help can help!" Ed squeals, taking a fistful of blue jellybeans and munching happily.

Ed's opinion shouldn't count for anything, but Faye finds herself feeling smug anyway. "Ed's right, you know." Her voice is airy. "It doesn't hurt to try."

Jet grunts in acquiescence and tries to snap off the cap to a bottle of _Blue Mountain Mist! _Crocogade before Spike grabs it out of his hand and does it for him, handing it back to him with an amused expression.

"I'm not an invalid," Jet mutters, nursing the bottle with an injured expression.

"_Faye Faye,_" Ed hoots, "blue blue is good for me and you!"

_*_

Spike doesn't come back for two days. When she finally hears the sound of the hangar opening, she steels herself for ridicule. She's the one cooking now that Jet's out of commission, and her attempt at soup is tasting more like hot ham water than anything resembling a broth. She bought an apron expressly for this purpose, too, and came in all ready to cook—oven mitts on both hands (her hands are delicate, after all) and hair swept out of her face. It's a bit embarrassing, knowing that Spike is seeing the extent of her dedication and how earnest she is about this whole thing, but she figured that if she was going to actually do this, she might as well do it right.

Spike watches her for a few minutes and she pretends not to notice, letting the steam from the soup crock obscure her vision of him. She's just about to hang her apron up when he tosses something in her direction.

"What's this?" She turns the card back and forth in her oven-mitted hand.

"I caught the one you guys were after," Spike says, taking the ladle from her other hand. "Just make sure to give Jet his share, too."

This warm feeling inside, it could just be the heat of the kitchen.

She's about to say something before Spike tastes the soup and makes a face like he's swallowed chunks of pre-terraformed Venus. "Dear God, Faye."

It's the fact that she's still irrevocably herself that makes her glad she didn't wear kitchen-appropriate footwear. Spike will be sporting a pleasantly heel-shaped bruise on his ass for the days to come—and no blue candy for him.

_*_

It's a warm, breezy day outside, so Spike brings out an old mahjong set that had been sitting around in storage. They set up shop outside, dressed in loose shirts and shorts like a few old Beijingers, gathering around the rickety square table to shuffle the tiles. Jet's movements are clumsy due to his injuries, and he probably gets the worst pick in tiles—but it's really Faye who is sitting in the unlucky East chair—her hand is terrible.

Spike sits to her right and Ed to her left, and she's left facing Jet. She gives him a sympathetic shrug of the shoulders before they start the game, though she's not sure why. He grins, half at her, half at his tiles. Clouds puff by slowly, overhead, casting shadows on the deck and then some.

Ed is busy shuffling her tiles around, _click click click_, while Spike's are in classic disarray, staggered and angled so that Faye can't see them even if she craned her neck halfway around the table. Of course this means that Jet has a pretty nice view of Spike's tiles if he wants, but she supposes that it's all fair, since he's already disadvantaged, with the cast on his arm and all.

Ein is prone under the table, curled up right in the middle. Faye's got her shoes off—they aren't going anywhere, after all, the weather is terrible right now, cloudy and rainy and stormy outside. She inches her toes closer to Ein, lightly resting them on the curve of his side, fur gently tickling her feet. She's almost surprised when he doesn't run away, or at least whine a little—maybe he's asleep.

"You start, Faye." Spike's voice lacks its normal edge.

Her feet are warming up, little by little, and she wiggles her toes. It's going to be a good game.

_*_

The storm clears late in the afternoon the next day, and Faye boots up the Redtail for today's grocery run. Ed decides at the last minute to accompany her and voluntary straps herself to the roof of Faye's ship, carrying a paper windmill in hand. "For testing wind velocity!"

They get back, groceries in hand. Jet's reading the paper, dressed in the blue pajamas and holding the newspaper in his good hand. He waves at them when they come in through the door. Ein trots up to Ed, sniffing and pawing, as if waiting for doggie treats.

"Where's the lunkhead?" Faye asks, setting the groceries down on the coffee table. "Oh, and I got you this. It was on sale." She sets down a juniper bush in front of Jet. "I figured it might add some variety to your collection."

Jet looks pleased, and tries to mask it. "You know, Faye, we're already running low on money for food—"

"Don't worry about it," Faye says, surprised at how adamant she sounds.

Jet's surprise is quickly contained. "Spike's barbequing tonight."

"I thought we didn't have the equipment!" Come to think of it, there is a distinct burning smell coming form the direction of the kitchen. "You men and your primitive urges for meat with pyromaniacs." Her eyes widen. "He's not using the _flamethrower, _is he?"

"I thought I'd give you the chance to stop him," Jet says, amused. "Or help him. I enjoy a good barbeque as much as the next person."

The kitchen is filled with smoke and the smell of charred food, and the stove (and the rest of the kitchen, who is she kidding) is black and Faye just _knows_ it's going to take ages to scrub down. Spike is wearing a gas mask over his head as he wields the flamethrower, sending bursts of fire at four skewers of meat and vegetables. He removes the mask when he sees her come in, and Faye can see the outline the soot has made on his face. He looks like a raccoon.

"I can't believe you're using the flamethrower again," she yells, trying not to laugh, "there's more efficient ways of cooking, you know."

"I didn't want to wash the dishes!"

"Well, _somebody_ has to! And it's your turn!"

"Well, maybe I thought it'd be nice if we had something _besides_ that thing you call a soup and Chinese stir fry." Spike reaches for a skewer and sniffs it carefully. "Plus, they say that barbeque is good for you."

"Not when it's marinated in propane."

Spike pats the flamethrower fondly. "Just be glad I didn't fill her up with diesel gas."

"Diesel has a distinctly nutty flavor that pairs well with Chardonnay," Jet's voice calls from the living room.

Faye knows the food will be terrible, but there are laughs in their voices anyway.

_*_

They wake up late on the weekends and spend their time ambling around the deck, playing games of mah-jong, fishing, sunbathing, scrubbing down the ships (and the kitchen). Faye makes sure to set the umbrella up this time, and Spike helps her anchor it with sandbags so it doesn't get picked up by the sea winds and blown to shore. Jet and Ed are swinging their legs over the ship, cans of bait and fishing gear untouched. Ed is doodling on Jet's cast, little drawings that resemble the ones the rogue satellite made on old South America, friends to play with each other on a bandaged surface. Jet is telling Ed the story of Divali in a paternal, story-telling voice, and Faye puts on her sunglasses as she settles into the deck chair, lotion liberally applied. She listens to Jet's story and watches planes go by in the air as Spike scrubs at Hammerhead, mop making plunking sounds as it hits the hull.

_*_

Phobos and Deimos are waning tonight; another month has gone by, but it feels she's been in the same day over and over again. The only indication that time has passed has been the slow dwindling of their bank accounts. No new bounties recently, except for the ones on the backlog, and Big Shot had been showing reruns.

They'd unplugged the television to make way for a hotpot dinner the other night, which had depleted what little food they had left. Faye sighs at the rumbling in her stomach and thinks that she might be a little crazy for thinking that all seems well with the world—after all, less food means a few days of dieting for her, which won't be bad for her figure, but she wonders about Spike, Jet, and Ed, their voracious appetites when food is plenty.

It feels strange to feel warm even as she stands outside now, as if her tan has captured the sun's energy in reserves.

"Hey," Spike says, coming to stand next to her. "Not bad, huh?"

"Mm," she hums.

They stand like that, listening to the sound of the water cresting onto the shore, against the Bebop, like a repeated embrace.

"Should bring in some of the furniture tonight," Spike says absently, gesturing at the mahjong table, the umbrella. "It's supposed to to rain tomorrow."

She doesn't know why, but her heart sinks a little. "Yeah, we should."

**Again**

Faye's not really napping; just lounging outside on the deck chair, as usual. It's colder than it usually is, so she's wrapped herself in a blanket. A magazine is draped over her face even though it isn't particularly sunny outside; it's flipped to a page about the hottest hairstyles and celebrity updos. Her nose twitches a little at the familiar, crinkle-sweet smell of women's magazines, and she tries harder to disappear into the chair, the deck, the embrace of the sun, hidden behind clouds. The blanket makes it easier to imagine that it's warm outside.

She doesn't know how much time has passed before it starts to drizzle, little shy kisses of drops that lick the tips of her toes, the parts that peek out from the covers. She wonders if it's possible to read the text of the magazine this close up. She opens her eyes, just a little, then closes them again to the slick sheen of water pooling on the deck, little mirrors that remind her of the clouds above.

A door opens somewhere, not in the brief, succinct way that wooden doors open and close, but in the echoing, reverberating ways that metal doors do, with thunder and the suggestion of heavy machinery. Footsteps approach. Faye shuts her eyes tighter and seals out the light completely, as if that will block the truth, too.

"Faye?"

She doesn't respond. Let him think she's asleep. Don't bother me, she thinks. The rain will let up soon. Forecast said it wasn't going to last past three in the afternoon.

There's a gentle pressure on her face, somebody reaching for the magazine, to lift it from her face. And because she's asleep, supposedly, admittedly, the pressure lingers longer than it should. Individual points of weight—fingers—touch, through the thick paper, the crinkle-sweet smell, over the bridge of her nose, on her right cheek. A stronger touch, the magazine whispers a little, on her lips.

It would be too light to notice if she weren't awake. If she were asleep, in truth, it would only be something half-felt, in dreams. A dream-touch, wind from the approaching rain. She's ashamed at the way her body warms to this, the way her chest swells like she's never breathed before, the way the space between her legs feels heavy, wanting, and unsatisfied.

Her body, waxing and waning, a perpetual half-moon, arching off the chair in a semblance of sleep-stir, and the pressure is gone, the magazine as well. The cloudy grey-light hits her eyes as suddenly as she expected. Jet's shadow looms over her, broad and not the sun, but she warms, emerges, to this; familiar again. He's got her magazine in his hand.

Her voice is thick, not with sleep. "You took off the cast?"

Jet is supposed to look at his arm, shrug nonchalantly, say, _that old thing?_ But his eyes are on her, traveling the path his fingers took through the magazine, flesh through paper on flesh. "I didn't want to wait anymore," he says.

_*_

Punch and Judy, familiar again: bounty in the outer reaches of the solar system, first big one in months. Jet's hand, fine enough to take control, a little weak in the wrist but everything should be okay for their mission. He makes his way to the control deck despites Faye's protests, her lone protests. Ed, goggles on and hunting in cyberspace, Ein in canine regression.

And Spike, hands in his pockets as he overlooks the deck from the bay window, thoughts of Julia half-mast.

Jet sets the coordinates for Saturn; they take off, sky turning from grey to blue as they break free of the clouds. The sun streams in through the bay window and for thirty seconds, they are still in Mars and everything is as it should be.

But the blue darkens, multiplies in on itself, turns black, and they're out in space again, for the first time in months, mission to complete, bounties to chase, and Faye feels her self-awareness returning, memories of her breasts, waist, hips, and legs.

She takes her checkcard out as they approach the hyperspace gate, but Jet's covers her hand with his as he pulls his own out, face strong—jaw set, eyes like flints. He swipes it through the reader, paying for their toll, and the gate erupts in a familiar blue and white whirlpool of light—a terminal blur. She can hear the wormhole humming, metal echoes reverberating in her head; _welcome back,_ it says, and a cold, tingling feeling washes over her as they pass the event horizon.

Jet's grip on her fingers is startling in its intensity for a recently cast-free hand, and she struggles to hold onto the last of her sun-warm self. But she can't help it—she smiles with her eyes, her lips, her body, removing her hand from his, trailing her fingertips under his wrist, watching him catch his breath.

* * *

_end_

* * *

**_A/N:_** I've always wanted to do a fic exploring the tension between Spike, Faye, and Jet. Faye is the sort of woman who, since she's lost in just about every other way, revels in her sexuality because that's the only way she knows how to connect with people. Of course, with the Bebop being as precarious a "family" as it is, any change in the power dynamic changes everybody else's roles, too, which is what I wanted to portray.

Liked it? Hated it? Thought it was OOC? Any feedback is highly appreciated and would make my day for days to come! :)


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